Method and apparatus for calculating whether power level is sufficient for data transfer

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for managing traffic in a network to and from a remote communications device with limited power supply resources. A controller determines the existing power level of the device and uses the determination to control data transmission to and from the device. Data may be transmitted and received by the device by determining the power required to complete a transmission or reception. The controller then determines whether to send the data, redirect the data, cancel the data transmission, or transmit only a portion of the data. The decision is made as to which option to choose based on the amount of power available to complete the data transmission.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to wireless and wireline communication systems.In particular, this invention relates to wireless and wirelinecommunication systems and the status of power sources associated withthe communication systems. Even more particularly, this inventionrelates to battery powered portable units, mobile units and unitslocated where wiring for power supply is difficult or non-existent.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

There has been incredible progress in wireless communications in thelast few decades. The economic growth and progress in worldwideprosperity has brought electronic and wireless applications into nearlyeverybody's reach. Cellular and mobile communications are a boomingsuccess. Portable devices, including mobile phones, can now be producedhaving acceptable cost, size and power consumption.

Mobile phone communications for the consumer market started with a phonesystem derived from the police and rescue services and was based on ananalog technology improved and optimized in the seventies and eighties.These systems led to the first analog phone systems for public usagesuch as Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS), Nordic Mobile Telephone(NMT) and Total Access Communications Systems (TACS). The usage ofmobile phones really took off in the nineties with the introduction ofmobile phone systems based on digital technology like Global System forMobile Communications (GSM), Digital Advanced Mobile Phone Service(D-AMPS) and Personal Digital Cellular (PDC). Although radio technologyis focused mainly on voice communications (with respect to handheldradios) data services grow in importance and eventually a mobileInternet will be established.

New systems based on packet data transmission are already planned andsome are being deployed. Examples are GPRS (General Packet RadioService) and UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone System). Whereas cellularsystems address wide area coverage, providing national servicesanywhere, other systems have been designed to give more localizedservices such as in an office or a residence. Today, indoor systemsbased on the WLAN IEEE 802.11 standard are widely deployed to providehigh data-rate access in restricted areas. A competing system calledHIPERLAN (High PERfomance LAN) has been designed to complement thecellular systems like UMTS by providing high capacity and high datarates to slowly moving users in hotspot areas. For the cordlesstelephony at home, DECT (Digitally-Enhanced Cordless Telephony) has beenstandardized and is widely used in households in Europe.

Recently, a new air interface called Bluetooth was introduced to replaceall cables between mobile phones, laptop computers, headsets, PDAs, andso on. An introduction to the Bluetooth system can be found in“BLUETOOTH—The universal radio interface for ad hoc, wirelessconnectivity,” by J. C. Haartsen, Ericsson Review No. 3, 1998. Radiocommunication systems for personal usage differ importantly from radiosystems like the public mobile phone network. In the latter systems, alicensed band is used which is fully controlled by the phone operatorand procedures are implemented to guarantee an interference freechannel. In contrast, personal radio communication equipment has tooperate in an unlicensed band and has to deal with uncontrolledinterference. A suitable band is the ISM (Industrial, Scientific andMedical) band at 2.45 GHz, which is globally available and provides 83.5MHz of radio spectrum.

Bluetooth is a frequency hopping system which hops over 79 hop carriersin the ISM band with a nominal hop rate of 1600 hops/s. Bluetoothdeploys a slotted channel with time slots of 625 μs. Each slot uses adifferent hop carrier selected according to a pseudo-random hoppingscheme. Bluetooth radio communications are based on peer communicationsand ad-hoc networking. This means that the system is not based on ahierarchical scheme with fixed infrastructure of base stations andportable terminals that communicate with the base stations via radiosignals as is common in cellular systems and WLAN systems. In peercommunications, all units are equal. There is no centralized controlthat can for example take care of resource and connection management andprovide other support services.

In ad-hoc networks, any unit can establish a connection to any otherunit in range. Ad-hoc networks are usually based on peer communications.To support the cable replacement scenarios as mentioned above, datatraffic over a radio interface must be very flexible. The interface mustsupport both symmetric and asymmetric (in either direction) trafficflows and synchronous and asynchronous services. In Bluetooth, this hasbeen realized with a very flexible slot structure without any multi-slotframes or anything alike. The time axis in Bluetooth is divided intoslots, and the connected units are free to allocate the slots fortransmission or reception.

Advances in wireless technology and the growing demand for more flexibleapplications provided by wireless communications makes it highly likelythat this field will expand to provide greater information flow to andfrom other types of portable devices and fixed access points. Morespecifically, it is lil<ely that further advances in technology willprovide very inexpensive radio equipment, which can be easily integratedinto many devices. This will reduce the number of cables currently usedand vastly expand the usage possibilities. However, large deployments ofwireless applications would not have been possible without largeimprovements in battery technology.

Size reduction and capacity increase in batteries have tried to keeppace with the size reduction and intensified processing in the wirelessterminals. However, developments towards higher data rates and mobileservices that require more intense data exchange as well as moreadvanced user presentation (like video) will put great pressure on thepower supply provided by the batteries. In wireless systems, data rateand power consumption are different parameters of the same equation. Inall wireless communication systems, power management functions arepresent to keep the power consumption to a minimum, leaving as muchstandby and talk time for the user as possible. It would be desirable toprovide the status of a receivers battery to a connected wireless systemso as to optimize and improve the operation of the user's wirelessterminal.

Wireless communication devices are attractive because of the freedom ofmovement they offer. However, this also means that the unit will bedependent upon batteries for power supply. Wireless applications areseen more and more as a replacement of the wired application, thusputting greater demands on transfer capacity and power consumption.Unfortunately, the progress in advanced wireless applications is movingforward more quickly than the advances in battery technology. Therefore,research is taking place to look for other energy resources like fuelcells.

In general, radio protocols include features that take into account thelimited power resources in the mobile terminals. For example, incordless and cellular phone systems, low power modes are defined thatkeep the units locked to a beacon or control channel at a low duty cyclewhen there is no voice connection. In general, these power managementfunctions try to keep the current drawn from the battery as low aspossible.

There are various examples of methods to monitor and conserve batterypower in wireless devices. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,459,896 issuedto Liebenow et al., discloses a system and method for notifying a remotedevice of a low battery condition in a wireless communications system. Awireless, battery operated device may be attached to a network with abattery monitor installed in the wireless device. If the batterydischarges to a predetermined power level, without corrective actionbeing taken, the battery monitor sends notification of the power levelto a remote device. This notification may be a warning to the user ofthe remote device that the connection to the wireless device cannot bemaintained due to low power level. The warning may be a pre-recordedannouncement.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,316 issued to Agrawal et al., discloses a method foradapting scheduling priorities to conserve battery power in mobileterminals within a wireless communication system. A scheduling method isdisclosed wherein a base station receives a signal from a mobileterminal that the terminal's battery level is below a predeterminedthreshold. The Base station may reschedule transmissions to the mobileso that messages may have a higher probability of successfultransmission before the battery power level diminished further.

Most, if not all, battery-driven equipment today has some method orapparatus of determining the battery or power source status of theequipment. The above prior art examples relate to monitoring a wirelessdevice battery and either notifying the device holder of a low batterycondition or scheduling transmissions to attempt to transmit a completemessage before the device battery expires. However, either example mayallow a device to send a message that may not be completed. There istherefore a need in the art for a method and apparatus in a wirelesscommunication system to account for the power supply status of the(mobile) devices in the system. In other words, there is a need tomanage traffic flows based on known power supply levels in the system.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

To address the above-discussed deficiencies of the prior art, it is aprimary objective of the present invention to provide a method andapparatus for managing a communication device power source for use in anetwork. A controller coupled to the network and the device determinesthe existing power level of the device's power source (battery). Thecontroller uses the information to control data transmission to and fromthe device while taking into account the power level of the powersource. Data may be transmitted and received by the device bydetermining the power available to complete a transmission or reception.The controller then determines whether to transfer the data to thetarget, redirect the data, cancel the data transmission or transfer onlya portion of the data (to or from the communication device)

When a communication device is initially connected to a network,information regarding the device's power source and the manner in whichthe device drains power when in operation may be passed to a controller.This information is periodically updated. During an active connection,the current state of the device's power source is determined and thedevice or the controller may calculate the drain rate of the powersource as related to the services available and that the device iscapable of handling.

When an incoming call (or outgoing call from the device) to the deviceis detected the size of the data to be transferred is determined. Acalculation is made to determine how much data may be transferred usingthe currently available power. Actions that may be taken by the presentinvention include: sending the complete transmission to a destination,sending a portion of the transmission to the destination and theremainder to a predetermined address and re-directing the entiretransmission to a network address. When a data is re-directed to analternate address, a notification is sent to the recipient describingthe actions taken.

Status of the power supply in each of the participating units in thenetwork is determined. Based on the battery status of one unit,different actions in the network may take place. For example, the statusof the power levels can influence traffic scheduling in the network. Ina cellular system, a central controller in the network can inform themobile user that the current power level of the mobile phone's batteryis insufficient to support a requested service. For instance, aconnection is established between a user and a mobile unit for receivinga 1 MByte data file. The current battery level may be too low tocomplete the entire transmission. If a control unit in the mobilenetwork knows the battery status, the file transfer may be diverted to amailbox in the network rather than send it over the air to the mobileunit. Simultaneously, it may signal to the mobile user that a file iswaiting, but that the battery level is too low to support downloadingthe complete file.

The type of information sent to a mobile unit may also depend on itsbattery status. For example, a PDA connects wirelessly to a WirelessLocal Area Network (WLAN) to check Email. If the PDA battery power levelis low only the Email headings are sent. Attachments and content of theemail are kept within the central mailbox. The user is notified thatattachments are waiting but the battery has to be charged before moreinformation can be retrieved.

In another embodiment, a large number of sensors may be connectedwirelessly to a master control unit. This master unit polls the sensorsat a very low duty cycle to obtain sensor readings. In these readings,the sensor may include the current battery status. If the battery is toolow (for example to supply more readings, or to remain in standby untilthe next poll event), the master unit may signal an alarm or otherindication to replace or recharge the battery in that particular sensor.

In a peer-to-peer link as in Bluetooth connected devices, the batterystatus of one unit may affect the behavior of another unit. For example,if a headset that is paired to a mobile phone has a battery level thatis still sufficient to support the standby mode but not sufficient tosupport the talk mode, an incoming call may be directed to thespeaker/microphone in the mobile phone rather than to the headset.

In an additional embodiment of the present invention the quality ofservice offered to the mobile user may depend on the mobile's batterypower level. For example, the power level may be sufficient to supporteither a 64 kb/s toll-quality speech connection for 10 seconds, or an 8kb/s acceptable speech connection for 2 minutes. The system may selectthe latter as it will better serve the user under these conditions.

Future wireless systems will provide multi-media messaging. Thesemessages may include voice, music, video, and more. Based on the batterylevel in the receiving device, the wireless system may decide to sendonly part of the message. For example, it may only send the voicemessage but not the video. It may indicate that an accompanying video iswaiting but the battery has to be replaced or recharged before thisvideo can be downloaded.

In the present invention, the battery power level of the mobile as wellas the power drain for the requested service is determined. Inparticular, a controller knows the power consumption per bit oftransmitted or received data. With the power drain per bit and thebattery level, it can be derived how many bits can still be received, oralternatively, how long a service with a certain bit rate can beprovided. The power consumption per bit may be dependent on themodulation mode (e.g. GSM or EDGE modulation) in the case of a mobileunit in a wireless network. The information about power drain per bitmay be communicated to the network once (the controller may include arecord with the unit's ID, characteristics, features, and also the powerconsumption per mode). In addition, the current battery status and/orthe power drain may also be communicated with regular updates since thepower drain rate may change over time. Alternatively, the receiver cancalculate the total number of bits it can receive based on the currentbattery power level and power drain and communicate that number to thecontroller.

In general, battery management as disclosed in the present inventionwill prevent loss of connection in the middle of a transaction.Anticipating battery power levels will improve the user experience. Byblocking a connection in the beginning and implementing alternatives foras long as the battery level is low is better than being disconnectedduring the transaction due to loss of battery power.

The foregoing has outlined rather broadly the features and technicaladvantages of the present invention so that those skilled in the art maybetter understand the detailed description of the invention thatfollows. Additional features and advantages of the invention will bedescribed hereinafter that form the subject of the claims of theinvention. Those skilled in the art should appreciate that they mayreadily use the conception and the specific embodiment disclosed as abasis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out thesame purposes of the present invention. Those skilled in the art shouldalso realize that such equivalent constructions do not depart from thespirit and scope of the invention in its broadest form.

Before undertaking the DETAILED DESCRIPTION, it may be advantageous toset forth definitions of certain words and phrases used throughout thispatent document: the terms “include” and “comprise,” as well asderivatives thereof, mean inclusion without limitation; the term “or,”is inclusive, meaning and/or; the phrases “associated with” and“associated therewith,” as well as derivatives thereof, may mean toinclude, be included within, interconnect with, contain, be containedwithin, connect to or with, couple to or with, be communicable with,cooperate with, interleave, juxtapose, be proximate to, be bound to orwith, have, have a property of, or the like; and the term “controller”means any device, system or part thereof that controls at least oneoperation, such a device may be implemented in hardware, firmware orsoftware, or some combination of at least two of the same. It should benoted that the functionality associated with any particular controllermay be centralized or distributed, whether locally or remotely. Inparticular, a controller may comprise one or more data processors, andassociated input/output devices and memory that execute one or moreapplication programs and/or an operating system program. Definitions forcertain words and phrases are provided throughout this patent document,those of ordinary skill in the art should understand that in many, ifnot most instances, such definitions apply to prior, as well as futureuses of such defined words and phrases.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The disclosed invention will be described with reference to theaccompanying drawings, which show important exemplary embodiments of theinvention and which are incorporated in the specification hereof byreference, wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts a mobile phone display with battery indication (priorart);

FIG. 2 illustrates a cellular phone system utilizing battery managementin accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 3 depicts a cordless phone system including battery managementaccording to the present invention;

FIG. 4 illustrates a timing diagram of parameters encountered incordless phone operation as depicted in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 depicts a sensor system with battery management according to thepresent invention;

FIG. 6 illustrates a Bluetooth connection between PC and PDA withbattery management according to the present invention;

FIG. 7 depicts a Bluetooth connection between a mobile phone and apaired headset with battery management according to the presentinvention; and

FIG. 8 illustrates a method for managing a communication device powersource in a network according to a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The numerous innovative teachings of the present application will bedescribed with particular reference to the presently preferred exemplaryembodiments. However, it should be understood that this class ofembodiments provides only a few examples of the many advantageous usesof the innovative teachings herein. In general, statements made in thespecification of the present application do not necessarily delimit anyof the various claimed inventions. Moreover, some statements may applyto some inventive features or embodiment(s) but not to others.

In FIG. 1, the display of a mobile phone is shown with a battery levelindicator in the lower right corner. Battery indicator 105 shows thepower level of the battery (not shown). When the power level of thebattery is very low the phone may sound an audible signal or maybeinitiate a flashing light that alarms the user who can then replace orre-charge the battery. However, the power drain on the battery isdifferent for different services. For example, a phone with a fullbattery may have a 7-day standby time or a 4 hours talk time. If thebattery is 5% filled, mobile phone 100 can remain in standby for another8 hours. However, when accepting a call during this time frame, theduration of the voice connection quickly drops to 12 minutes or less.With more demanding services like video and multi-media messages, theimbalance becomes even larger. As a result, communications may bedisrupted in the middle of a transaction since the battery level mayhave been adequate when transmission started, but was not high enough tosupport the entire transaction.

A battery management function is disclosed that takes into account apower level of the battery and the expected power drain in the batteryaccompanying the service provided or requested. In the presentinvention, the power level status of the battery is not only knowninside the terminal in which the battery is residing (as in the phone inFIG. 1), but may be communicated wirelessly to a control center in thenetwork and to other wireless units connected to the network. Obviously,in the case of a wireless network, the power level status may becommunicated wirelessly.

FIG. 2 illustrates a cellular phone system utilizing battery managementaccording to the present invention. Cellular system 200 includesmacro-cellular base station 210, micro-cell base station 220, basestation controller (BSC) 230, server 240 and terminal 205. Asillustrated, terminal 205 is out of the range of micro-cell base station220 and is locked in standby or idle mode to base station 210 viacellular link 208. A multimedia (MM) message with voice and videocontent may be sent from network 250 to terminal 205. Terminal 205 isassigned to a traffic channel.

Prior to beginning any transaction, terminal 205 reports its batterystatus to BSC 230. Based on the battery status report, BSC 230 will makea choice: if the battery status is high, BSC 230 will forward the MMmessage to terminal 205 or if the battery status is really low, BSC 230will divert the MM message to a mailbox for terminal 205.Simultaneously, a short-message-service (SMS) message is sent toterminal 205 to announce that an MM message is available in the networkbut that the battery is too low to allow delivery. However, the batterylevel may be high enough to only send the voice content of the message.BSC 230 may then send the voice content of the message to terminal 205and divert the video content to the mailbox of the user.

In another example, terminal 205 may need to transmit an Email messagevia communications network 200. Terminal 205 contacts base station 210for a traffic channel. Based on the 1) size of the Email message, 2) thetransmit power required to overcome path loss between base station 210and terminal 205, and 3) the battery status, terminal 205 and/or basestation 210 may decide to postpone transmission. Preferably, network 200(e.g. in the BSC or some other control unit) utilizes all thisinformation to make a decision. When terminal 205 moves into thedirection of micro-cell base station 220, the idle connection betweenterminal 205 and base station 210 is handed over to micro-cell basestation 220. BSC 230, recognizing that terminal 205 is now connected tothe micro-cell base station with a much shorter range, may allocate atraffic channel between micro-cell base station 220 and terminal 205 totransfer the email. Since the distance is much smaller and path loss islower, the battery level may be sufficient to effect complete transferof the Email message. The user is of course not involved in thisactivity as it happens in the background.

In addition to battery level, terminal 205 may provide the anticipatedpower drain (either per bit or per second) for the considered service.This power drain may be constant (e.g. for terminals without transmitpower control and a fixed modulation format) in which case terminal 205only has to communicate once to network 200. This type of informationmay be stored in database 260 where a record is kept of the terminalequipment that is connected to network 200. For example, each record maybe labeled by the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) or someother serial number associated with terminal 205. The record can furtherinclude services, modes and additional features that terminal 205 cansupport. The power drain per mode can also be incorporated in thisrecord. Alternatively, at connection establishment, terminal 205 candirectly provide the server with information about the amount of datathat can be transferred or the service time that is supported by thecurrent battery status.

The power drain may also change over time. For example, when terminal205 is communicating with BSC 230, terminal 205 may move away from BSC230. Cellular systems usually include power control to compensate forthe increase in signal attenuation. Consequently, terminal 205 will beordered to increase transmit power resulting in an increased powerdrain. An update of the power drain can, for example, be signaled to BSC230 via the slow-associated control channel (SACCH), which may result infurther actions in the network to optimize the traffic flow.

In the example above, terminal 205 may be located in a macro-cell atquite a distance from the base station. Transmit power of terminal 205may be controlled at 200 milliwatts (mW) for acceptable reception by thebase station. The current drain to support a 50 kilobits per second(kb/s) GPRS uplink connection is 100 mA. The current battery level ofterminal 205 is at 10 mAh. Therefore this service can be maintained forsix minutes, or the amount of data that can be transferred is 2.25megabytes (MB). If a 10 MB file has to be transferred, terminal 205 maydecide to wait before submitting the file to the network. When terminal205 moves within reach of micro-cell base station 220, it may reduce thetransmit power of terminal 205 to 10 mW. The current drain to support a50 kb/s GPRS uplink connection then becomes 10 mA. As a result, thebattery, level is sufficient to support the transfer of a 22.5 MB fileand more than sufficient to send the 10 MB file to the network.

FIG. 3 depicts a cordless phone system including battery managementaccording to the present invention. Cordless system 300 is shown withbase station 310 and voice terminal 320. Air interface 340 supportsdifferent voice coding schemes ranging from 64 kb/s Pulse CodeModulation (PCM) to 4 kb/s Code Excited Linear Prediction (CELP). Inthis example, the battery is a 600 milli-ampere-hour (mAh) battery whichis 10% charged (60 mAh). For the 64 kb/s transmit mode, the terminaldrains 100 mA whereas for the low rate 4 kb/s transmit mode, the currentdrain is only 10 mA. When a call is made, initially the 64 kb/s mode isused for perfect speech quality. However, the perfect speech qualitymode can only be sustained for 36 minutes before the battery is empty.Talk time may be extended by switching to a lower (but lower quality)rate by gradually reducing the transmission rate (say from 64 kb/s to32, to 16, 8 and 4 kb/s). For instance, terminal 320 only has 64 kb/sand 4 kb/s modes. If after 30 minutes in the 64 kb/s mode the connectionis still on, the system may switch to the 4 kb/s mode for the uplink.Instead of having 6 minutes left, the phone can be used for another houralbeit with a lower speech quality in the uplink.

FIG. 4 illustrates a timing diagram of parameters encountered incordless phone operation as depicted in FIG. 3. In FIG. 4, the events intime are shown. When the battery is only 1.7% charged, it switches to amode with less current drain. As part of the connection setup, theterminal may communicate the following record to the base station(values in the table below are given as example): current battery level60 mAh power drain 64 kb/s 100 mA mode power drain 4 kb/s mode 10 mABase station 310 may then decide when to switch modes in order to extendthe service time at the expense of the voice quality.

FIG. 5 depicts a remote sensor system with battery management accordingto the present invention. A wireless telemetry system 500 is shown whichincludes central master 510 that connects to sensors 520 a-e distributedin a manufacturing hall. A battery is connected to each one of sensors520 a-e to provide operating power. Periodically, central master 510wirelessly activates sensors 520 a-e to retrieve some readings liketemperature, humidity, and so on. In addition to these reading, sensors520 a-e report battery status. If one of the sensors reports a lowbattery, central master 510 can activate another sensor to take over theoperation of first sensor. Additionally, central master 510 can signalor alarm a unit to be checked by maintenance. Maintenance can thenreplace the battery of the considered sensor before the sensor has lostcontact with central master 510.

FIG. 6 illustrates a Bluetooth connection between a Personal Computer(PC) and a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with battery management,according to the present invention. PC 610 and PDA 620 are shown asbeing in contact with each other via Bluetooth link 660. When cominginto each other's range, PC 610 and PDA 620 try to synchronize amailbox. PC 610 is permanently connected to network 650 and has receivedmany new mail items. To prevent aborting data exchange in the middle ofsynchronization because of a depleted battery in PDA 620, PC 610 firstchecks battery status of PDA 620 by requesting a battery status reportfrom PDA 620 via Bluetooth link 660. Additionally, PDA 620 may indicateits power drain when supporting a Bluetooth connection. If the batteryis okay, synchronization can commence. If the battery is too low tosupport the entire synchronization session, PC 610 may choose not tostart synchronization, but instead send a message to PDA 620 that the PC610 battery is too low to support this synchronization service (althoughit may be high enough to support some other, less demanding functions).Alternatively, battery status may be sufficient just to send the headersand subject fields of the Email messages but not the bodies andattachments.

FIG. 7 depicts a Bluetooth connection between a mobile phone and apaired headset with battery management, according to the presentinvention. Mobile phone 720 and a headset 710 is connected via Bluetoothlink 750. Mobile phone 720 is wirelessly connected to a mobile network(not shown) via cellular link 760 and is locked to base station 730. Thebattery of headset 710 is 10% charged. This level may be enough tosupport a voice connection for 30 minutes. However, if MP3 audio filesare to be transmitted to headset 710, only 5 minutes can be supported inthe headset. Depending on the service requested by the user, mobilephone 720 may deny services because of a low battery level in headset710. Alternatively, the display in mobile phone 720 may show the batterylevel of headset 710 in addition to the mobile phone 720 battery level.In that case, headset 710 reports battery status periodically to mobilephone 720. In a wireless personal area network established withBluetooth, the status of all the batteries in the network can becommunicated between all units in the network. This information can bedisplayed on each unit, but can also be used to schedule traffic flowsand make decisions which modes are most appropriate to serve the user inan optimal way.

Power drain in similar devices will differ from manufacturer tomanufacturer. Power drain information can be downloaded or flashed intothe terminal (if transmit power control is applied, a look-up table maybe used with different entries for different transmit power levels).Alternatively, the terminal can learn automatically while in servicewhat the drain per mode will be. All the information like transmitbattery status (change), transmit power level, operational mode, andduration of operation can be communicated to the operating system of theterminal. From this information, the terminal can derive the power drainfor each operation.

FIG. 8 illustrates a method for managing a communication device powersource in a network according to a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention. The process begins at step 805, which depicts connecting, oractivating, a communications device to a network. The communicationsdevice may be a mobile phone in a wireless network, a cordless phone setconnected to a PSTN, a remote battery powered sensor, a Personal DigitalAssistant connected to a network through a computer, a mobile phone andBluetooth headset connected to a wireless network, or any otherequivalent device and network.

For the purpose of explanation and description the communication devicewill be a mobile phone connected to a wireless network and the powersupply is the mobile phone battery. When connecting to a network (Step810) a controller may query the mobile phone to determine the parametersregarding the power level of the mobile phone's battery and the powerconsumption of the services to which the mobile phone may be subscribed.(Step 815) If the phone is reconnecting to the network, the parametersmay already be stored and the controller then retrieves the parametersto apply to any transactions that take place between the phone and thenetwork (Step 820). The phone is monitored for any data transfers thatmay take place between the phone and the network (Step 825).

If a data transfer is scheduled or requested, the size of the data to betransferred is determined. In the case of a voice transmission, thecontroller determines the battery power level and sets the appropriatequality of service (QoS). The power level is monitored and the QoS isadjusted to accommodate the remaining power in the battery. Thisdetermination may be made by the network controller or by the phone(Step 830). The current power drain of the battery for the phone and theamount of remaining power is calculated. The amount of data to betransferred and the power drain relating to the type and amount of datato be transferred is also determined. The amount of power required totransfer the data is then calculated (Step 835).

A determination is then made whether the battery power level issufficient to make the complete data transfer (Step 840). If so, thedata transfer is commenced (Step 845). If not, a determination is thenmade if a portion of the data can be transferred (Step 850). If the datacan be divided, a portion is sent to the phone and the remainder is thensent to a predetermined destination. An automatic message is also sentto the device indicating the actions taken and the address that thephone may access to retrieve the balance of the message (Step 855).

If the determination is made that the data either cannot be divided orthe battery power level cannot support a complete transfer, the completemessage may be re-directed to a predetermined destination and anautomatic message is then sent to the device (step 860).

As will be recognized by those skilled in the art, the innovativeconcepts described in the present application can be modified and variedover a wide range of applications without departing from the spirit andscope of the invention in its broadest form. Accordingly, the scope ofpatented subject matter should not be limited to any of the specificexemplary teachings discussed, but is instead defined by the followingclaims.

1. A method for managing traffic in a network, involving a communicationdevice with a limited power supply, characterized by: determining acurrent level of available power in said power supply for transmittingand receiving functions of said communication device; communicating saidpower level to a controller; determining a current power drain rate ofsaid power source; detecting a need for data transfer associated withsaid communication device, wherein said data transfer is one of anincoming call to said communication device and a request fortransmission from said communication device; determining a quantity ofdata relating to said data transfer; calculating whether said powerlevel is sufficient to effect the transfer of said data; and signalingsaid controller to effect said data transfer according to said powerlevel calculations.
 2. The method of claim 1, further characterized by:storing initial parameters for said power supply of said communicationdevice and periodically updating said power supply parameters, whereinsaid parameters include: a drain rate for each communication serviceavailable to said communication device; and an initial power sourcelevel upon connection to the network.
 3. The method of claim 1, whereinsaid step of signaling said controller comprises instructions based onsaid power supply connections for one of receiving all of said data,redirecting all of said data to a predetermined location, and receivinga portion of said data and directing the remainder of said data to apredetermined address.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein saidcommunication device is a battery operated remote sensor and saidnetwork is a wireless network.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein saidnetwork is a non-wireless network.
 6. The method of claim 1, whereinsaid communication device is a wireless mobile terminal and said networkis a wireless network.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein said traffic isvoice traffic and a voice call is begun on said mobile terminal at afirst quality of service level according to an initially determinedpower level and power drain rate of said mobile terminal battery, andsaid voice call is continued at a second quality of service levelaccording to a subsequently determined power level and power drain rateof said mobile terminal battery.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein avideo message is presented for transfer and the audio portion of themessage is transferred but the video portion is redirected to apredetermined address and a message is sent to inform the recipient ofsaid audio the location of said video portion.
 9. The method of claim 3,wherein said data comprises a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)message.
 10. The method of claim 3, wherein said data comprises a videomessage.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein said communication device isa wireless modem.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein said communicationdevice is a cordless phone system and said network is a public switchedtelephone network (PSTN).
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein saidcommunication device is a personal digital assistant and connects to aPSTN by wirelessly connecting to a computer connected to said PSTN 14.An apparatus for managing traffic in a network involving a communicationdevice with a limited power supply, characterized by: a transceiver forreceiving and transmitting messages; a controller for monitoring acurrent power level of said power supply and a calculated power drainrate of said communication device; means coupled to said power supplyfor determining said power drain rate of said communication device; andsignal means for signaling said communication device to one of receiveand transmit messages according to said current power level and saiddrain rate.
 15. The apparatus of claim 14, further characterized by: adatabase for storing initial parameters for said power supply of saidcommunication device and periodically updating said power supplyparameters, wherein said parameters include: a drain rate for eachcommunication service available to said communication device; and aninitial power source level upon connection to the network.
 16. Theapparatus of claim 14, further characterized by means for signaling saidcontroller to one of: receiving all of said data, redirecting all ofsaid data to a predetermined location, and receiving a portion of saiddata and directing the remainder of said data to a predetermined addressbased on said power supply measurements.
 17. The apparatus of claim 14,wherein said communication device is a battery operated remote sensorand said network is a wireless network.
 18. The apparatus of claim 17,wherein said network is a non-wireless network.
 19. The apparatus ofclaim 14, wherein said communication device is a wireless mobileterminal and said network is a wireless network.
 20. The apparatus ofclaim 19, wherein said traffic is voice traffic and a voice call isbegun by said wireless mobile terminal at a first quality of servicelevel according to an initially determined power level and power drainrate of a battery for said wireless terminal and said voice call iscontinued at a second quality of service level according to asubsequently determined power level and power drain rate of saidbattery.
 21. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein a video message ispresented for transfer and the audio portion of the message istransferred but the video portion is redirected to a predeterminedaddress and a message is sent to inform the recipient of said audio thelocation of said video portion.
 22. The apparatus of claim 14 whereinsaid communication device is a wireless modem.
 23. The apparatus ofclaim 14, wherein said communication device is a cordless phone systemand said network is a public switched telephone network (PSTN).
 24. Theapparatus of claim 14, wherein said communication device is a personaldigital assistant and connects to a PSTN by wirelessly connecting to acomputer connected to said PSTN
 25. The apparatus of claim 14, whereinsaid means for determining said power drain rate further comprisesperiodically determining said power drain rate associated with saidcommunication device when said communication device changes locationduring data transmission.
 26. The method of claim 1, wherein the step ofdetermining a current power drain rate of said power source furthercomprises the step of periodically determining said drain rate when saidcommunication device changes location during data transmission.